Full of black goodness
Like many other Finns abroad, one thing I miss from the homeland is salmiakki,
that is, ammonium chloride eaten as candy. In practice, the candies are
often extended with licorice, sugar, gum arabic etc. traditional
ingredients of candies, but there is no mistaking the taste of
salmiakki for any other type of candy.
I know only one place where Finnish salmiakki is available in Toronto. The place also sells Finnish rye bread, which is the second typically Finnish product that expats tend to miss. I seldom go to that place, though, since we usually receive a package full of various salmiakki candies in Christmas, lasting a month or so, and the rest of the year I don't long for salmiakki badly enough. My Canadian wife never acquired a taste for salmiakki, going "blechh" every time I try to offer it to her.
I recently noticed an interesting thing about salmiakki. I wasn't previously able to understand my wife's complaints that salmiakki tastes "too salty", since I never thought of the taste as being salty in any sense of that word. And I doubt that most Finns, especially kids, would ever use that word to describe the taste. But this Christmas, I suddenly tasted the salmiakki as a salty taste, and for this reason, I have to admit it no longer tasted as great as it used to when I was a kid. Perhaps I have lost something essential of my Finnish nature.
I still like the salmiakki candies where the taste of pure salmiakki was partially covered with licorice and sugar and other sweeter tastes. I also still like Turkinpippuri candies, and as "hot" as these candies are supposed to be, I think the vegetable soup that I ate yesterday with dosa was way hotter, even though it wasn't even close to the hottest stuff available at the stand. I wonder if Indians would munch Turkinpippuri candies and just go "meh", since in India everything is hotter, even the moon which is as hot as Sun here but bigger, as the old sailor couplet informs us.
I know only one place where Finnish salmiakki is available in Toronto. The place also sells Finnish rye bread, which is the second typically Finnish product that expats tend to miss. I seldom go to that place, though, since we usually receive a package full of various salmiakki candies in Christmas, lasting a month or so, and the rest of the year I don't long for salmiakki badly enough. My Canadian wife never acquired a taste for salmiakki, going "blechh" every time I try to offer it to her.
I recently noticed an interesting thing about salmiakki. I wasn't previously able to understand my wife's complaints that salmiakki tastes "too salty", since I never thought of the taste as being salty in any sense of that word. And I doubt that most Finns, especially kids, would ever use that word to describe the taste. But this Christmas, I suddenly tasted the salmiakki as a salty taste, and for this reason, I have to admit it no longer tasted as great as it used to when I was a kid. Perhaps I have lost something essential of my Finnish nature.
I still like the salmiakki candies where the taste of pure salmiakki was partially covered with licorice and sugar and other sweeter tastes. I also still like Turkinpippuri candies, and as "hot" as these candies are supposed to be, I think the vegetable soup that I ate yesterday with dosa was way hotter, even though it wasn't even close to the hottest stuff available at the stand. I wonder if Indians would munch Turkinpippuri candies and just go "meh", since in India everything is hotter, even the moon which is as hot as Sun here but bigger, as the old sailor couplet informs us.
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